The Dance
by Clayin
Summary: Written from the POV of a nameless child, it is a story of a dance...or a battle...or of death...or a combination of the three


Disclaimers: not mine! Never have been! Never will!  
  
The Dance  
  
They were there again. Every day, they appeared in the clearing near Hogwarts in the Forbidden Forest. You could set your watch by them. Every Wednesday, at five-nineteen in the evening, forms would appear on the overgrown field. The first to appear invariably was a petite redheaded girl, who wandered into the field with a confused expression. The moment she reached the center, she looked around, horrified. She flung herself left, then right, then forward, each time catching herself before she hit the ground. Then she'd fall backwards, and cower in fear.  
  
At that moment exactly, a tall, redheaded boy in his upper teens would race onto the field and dive into a rolling tackle, as if knocking her out of the way. Then he'd spring to his feet and go tearing off the field, dragging her along. As soon as he disappeared, a bushy brunette about the same age as he would race on. She'd spin and dance around, pointing with her right hand and ducking and racing. Then the boy would come back, followed by a man with brown and gray hair. They'd join the girl in her wild, twisting dance. Then, the man would fall, and raise an arm over his head as if to protect himself. Suddenly, from the trees on the other side, an enormous black dog would appear and tackle the air above the man's head, snapping his teeth. The dog also joined the dance, barreling around the field.  
  
From another direction entirely came a man with a hooked nose and long black hair followed by a boy with sleek blonde locks. The man shoved the boy in the direction of Hogwarts and leapt into the dance as the boy backed quickly out of the clearing.  
  
More people appeared, coming from the direction of Hogwarts, with the blonde boy among them. There were large gaps in their ranks, but they were ignored as they jumped into the fray as well.  
  
The first to fall was a boy with mousy hair and big ears. He doubled up, collapsing in on his stomach. He lay still, only moving a little, as if someone was shaking him, trying to make him get up.  
  
Then the gray-and-brown haired man toppled then, crumpling gently to the ground. The black dog saw and raced over, snapping and tearing at the air. He nosed the man, trying to make him get up and move. The man did move, but only to roll sideways a little, as if he'd been kicked. The dog howled in misery and anger and lunged over the body as if to get at whatever had kicked the man.  
  
Before each person fell, they seemed to take center stage, without them or anyone else moving. You just noticed them then.  
  
The petite redheaded girl from before tackled the redheaded boy and then fell limp against him. Panicked, the boy shook the girl, then, with a howl of rage, much like the black dog, he lunged back into the thick of the dance, moving with a wild fury like never before.  
  
The blonde boy was standing near the brunette girl when she fell. The redhead noticed the girl and screamed at the other boy, running at him. The blonde backed up, afraid of the other boy, and stopped like he'd run into something. The redhead stopped too and pointed behind the blonde. The blonde looked up and his expression changed from simple fear to abject terror. Then he flew up into the air and landed, crumpled, on the ground. The redhead pointed at the invisible thing that had been behind the blonde and shouted wildly. I couldn't make out the words, but he kept shouting and pointing and backing up. Finally, he stopped and raced forward, ducking under the invisible thing and joining the dance again.  
  
One by one every member of the dance fell to the ground in imitation of death. The hook-nosed man with black hair fell in convulsions, as if under the Unforgivable Crucio. The dog leapt and twisted in the air, seemingly a victim of the Transmogrifian Torture. A man with long white hair disappeared in a burst of flames, and those remaining roared in fury and pain at his removal. Teens toppled left and right, the redheaded boy among them. Soon, everyone was lying in the field. One by one, the bodies were levitated off the field, except for the redheaded boy and the brunette girl. They slowly rose to their feet on opposite sides of the clearing and looked at each other. Raising their arms, they raced towards each other and embraced with one arm, holding the other out towards Hogsmead, and looking sadly in that direction. It also happened to be in my direction, since I viewed the dance from under the branches of a weeping willow tree.  
  
They didn't want me. If I moved at all during the dance, they disappeared like wisps of smoke.  
  
Usually around this time, there would be a rustle behind me, or I'd think I'd hear someone call my name and look around. When I looked back, the boy and girl were gone.  
  
  
  
Harry Potter lives in Hogsmead. He lives on the outskirts, in the once- haunted house, the Shrieking Shack. Even though it hasn't shrieked for decades, it's still the Shrieking Shack. Harry fixed it up, so the windows aren't boarded up and you can actually see the garden.  
  
Harry's really, really old. His hair is the most ghostly shade of white and he's practically blind, even with his glasses – he wears the coke-bottle kind, for some odd reason. I think he's in retirement now. He was the very best Defense Against Dark Arts teacher, according them, whoever they may be. And he broke the curse on the position – before him; no one lasted a year. He kept it so long that people were beginning to wonder if Hogwarts would have ghosts teaching both History of Magic AND Defense Against Dark Arts.  
  
But now he spends most of his time sitting on his front porch and waiting for something. He won't tell anyone what it is he's waiting for, even me.  
  
All the kids in town love him. When he's not Waiting, he's teaching the younger ones how to play Quidditch or telling wild tales of his adventures at Hogwarts. The older kids say he's making them up, but they're the truth. The older kids say that the Caretaker knows all the passages, but once Harry took some of us to Hogwarts through a secret tunnel only known to him. He'd sneak us around Hogwarts, dodging the staff surprisingly well for an old man. He showed us the bathroom the leads to the Chamber of Secrets and opened the tunnel under the sink. But he wouldn't let us go down.  
  
After the dance, I walked to the Shack. Harry was Waiting again. But he smiled when he saw me. I'm his favorite. We talk and tell each other everything. Except for the dance. I never tell anyone about the dance. The dance is my secret, shared only with me and myself.  
  
And he never talks about his seventh year. If a little kid asks about it, everyone else shushes them. It makes Harry hurt to think about his seventh year. The other adults won't say why and Harry's not telling. But that's okay.  
  
Today Harry and I are talking about witchcraft. He's the only person who will help my practice my debating skills. Everyone else gets bored while I work my thoughts into order, or claim that debating isn't a proper skill to have. Harry doesn't believe in proper or improper skills. We always have to flip a coin to decide who is going to play devil's advocate. He loses the toss, so today it's his job. He laughs and claims that it will be easy for him to play this side of the debate, since his aunt and uncle had taken this view on the subject and expressed it to him many times.  
  
By the time we finish, night has covered the landscape and stars are twinkling in the heavens. He taught me – me, just me! – To recognize the constellations. He thinks it's funny that my favorite constellation is Draco. I don't see what's so funny about liking dragons. He says that his favorite is Canis Major. We sat silently on his porch, looking up at the stars.  
  
"I'm going on a long journey soon." Harry said. "A journey with some old friends."  
  
"Can I come too?" I ask. Harry chuckles quietly and shakes his head.  
  
"No, not this time. Someday, I will. I promise." He turned in his chair and smiled at me. "You should get to bed. Your parents are waiting."  
  
"Okay," I said, getting up. "Goodnight Harry!"  
  
"Goodbye." Harry said softly, waving at me as I trotted away down the path.  
  
The next morning his housekeeper found him dead, still sitting in that chair on the porch.  
  
  
  
Over the subsequent week, I tried everything and anything to keep my mind off Harry. But no matter what I did, I remembered talking to him about it or something relating to it or hearing about how someone else did it from Harry. The only thing that we hadn't talked about, it seemed, was the dance – only because he didn't know about it. By Wednesday, I was so antsy to get my mind off him; I walked in the Forest for hours. But I made it in time for the dance. It passed the same way it always did; first the redhead girl, then the redhead boy, the bushy brunette, the man, the dog, the troop. I watched numbly. The falls. The removal of the prone forms. The redhead and brunette rising and running toward each other and embracing with one arm towards Hogsmead. But this time, something different happened. A boy, the age of the duo in the field, materialized directly in front of me. He was short with messy black hair and bright green eyes and stupid- looking glasses. He smiled at me and held up a fist, palm down. It took a moment for me to realize he wanted to give me something. Slowly, I reached out my own hand until it was directly under his. A small, oval-shaped mirror, an inch long and half that wide, fell into my hand. The boy grinned widely at me, then turned and raced onto the field, bounding and wind- milling his arms until he crashed into the twosome, who no longer looked mournful, but happy and exited. The three embraced and the other dancers started coming out of the woods. The dog bounded out onto the field and barely finished a transformation into a man before he tackled the new boy in a bear hug. The brown-and-gray haired man followed, grinning widely and clapping the boy on the back. The petite redhead smiled shyly and wrapper her arms around him in a quick hug before retreating behind the redheaded boy, her face the same color as her hair. The blonde teen and the man with the hooked nose hung back, making faces at the other dancers and rolling their eyes in an exasperated manner. The boy with big ears danced around the outer edge of the group hug, attempting to get in close and chatter at the new boy, who was smiling with tears running down his face as he clung to the arms of the redhead boy and the bushy brunette. It was then and only then I noticed that they were all standing several inches above the ground, and that they were all rapidly becoming indistinct. The messy-haired boy looked over the crowd and waved at me one last time before they faded into nothing. I continued staring even after they'd disappeared, clutching the mirror.  
  
So that was why Harry never talked about his seventh year.  
  
The End  
  
A/N: Wanna know what the mirror is? That's for you to decide.  
  
Love it? Hate it? Severely confused? Well, for any of those, Madam Pomfrey prescribes a healthy review! 


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